NIEA Win, Book Trailer, Audio Book and more news!

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It has been a really long time since I’ve posted an update, and I will say that a lot of that has to do with how busy things have been at work. That said, a lot has happened for me and Compendium over the last few weeks, so I am trying to figure out where to start. I suppose I will go in chronological order!

Launch! – Compendium officially launched on May 5. If you ordered a copy pre-release from this site, it is in the mail on its way to you. If you don’t receive it in the next week, please let me know, as all books have been sent out, and I want to make sure that everyone gets their copy!

Blog Tour – I had a very successful blog tour, and I’d like to thank all of the bloggers who participated and especially CBB Book Promotions and Candace for planning and executing the tour. I got lots of lovely reviews, posted some guest posts on and did some fun interviews! I also gave away an Amazon gift card. The lucky winner was Natalie at Book Lover’s Life! Congrats to Natalie. I hope she spent it on something fun and not at all practical! If you’d like to read my reviews and interviews, check out my Press page. If you’d like to read some of the guest posts, check out my About Me page.

National Indie Excellence Award – Just as my blog tour wrapped up, I received an e-mail that Compendium was selected for the 2015 National Indie Excellence Award in the Fantasy category. In my mind Compendium is a science fiction book, since Lumin does not rely on magic, but I definitely have created a very fantastical world, so Candace and I marketed the book as Sci-Fantasy. Apparently, the Fantasy portion has been winning out over the Sci-Fi. All I know is that I love the world I’ve invented, and I hope other people do as well, regardless of what it is labeled. That said, I’m very proud to have been awarded the National Indie Excellence Award. It is open to all books except the big six publishing houses, so entries come from all over, including many small publishing companies, and the NIEA judges felt Compendium was best in Fantasy, so thank you very much!

Book Trailer – Not long after the NIEA was bestowed, Day finished up the book trailer for Compendium. If you can watch it with the audio on (i.e., not at work), definitely do. The video took Day months, which is why it wasn’t up as a preview, but I am really quite proud of it, and I hope you all enjoy it as well.

Audio Book – The audio version of Compendium is now in production! I have engaged Shiromi Arserio to narrate and produce the audio version, which will be available on Audible.com and through iTunes once it’s been released, which should be near the end of July. It will probably be a little over 10 hours unabridged. Once it becomes available, I will post a link to how you can join audible for a free trial and get some free audio books as well as an excerpt. It would be a great way to check out Compendium. I think Shiromi will do a fantastic job, and her recording studio is painted to look like the outside of the Tardis! How awesome is that? You can see the audio book cover as the featured image up above.

Alia’s Book Club – I told you I had a lot of news! My final bit of information for this update is that I’ve finally crystalized what I want my newsletter to be like. It will be sent monthly, and it will include updates, a serialized excerpt from my origin story novella currently in development, loosely titled Lumin Awakening as of now, and most importantly, a book club style review of a book that I have recently read and why/how it helped my process. Close readings are something that I do a lot, and I would love the chance to share some of my favorite books with my readers. There is no obligation for anyone to read anything I recommend, but I will be giving away a free copy of each book I recommend to one of my e-mail list subscribers, probably in the form of an Amazon gift. I haven’t figured out how yet, but it will be through Rafflecopter, and there will be one or a few copies available monthly, depending on the price of the book when I make the recommendation. You will have to be subscribed to get these excerpts and book giveaways, but I promise to only be in touch once per month! Subscribe now (if you haven’t already) to get in before the first posting goes out.

Launch Party – The launch party was postponed due to work-related matters, but I am still hoping to have one, and I now have an award to celebrate as well, so I will keep everyone posted on the timing/place of the party!

If you made it all the way to the end, kudos! This was one long update! I till try to get them out more often and stop cramming ten topics into each one!